A Summer
by capturethecastle
Summary: Updated for season three revelations. Downton Abbey 1939 and George Crawley, Molly Bates and Billie Branson would be distracted by the likelihood of war if they weren't so much by each-other...
1. Chapter 1

**Prologue:**

April 1939, Dublin,

'You going then?' the girl propped herself up on a white arm, she was watching with interest as fastened his dinner jacket in the half-light. He gave a guilty start and she laughed and said, liltingly,

'I should be cross, but I suppose by inviting a man I barely know back to my bed I'm asking to be jilted,'

'You must think me a terrible cad,' he said, sitting down on the bed, half wanting to kiss her a little more, 'I must be on a boat to Liverpool this morning, I have affairs in England that cannot wait,'

'And what affairs would they be?' she asked, 'or are they too complex for my feminine mind?'

'Pressing ones,' he fingered a strand of dark hair but she moved away from him.

'Well you're fine, my Da's in America and Becca won't be back from her party for an age, you can let yourself out,'

'What about your twenty cousins with pitch-forks?'

'Dead drunk and in their own beds, no doubt,' she said sleepily, 'how did you know I had twenty cousins?'

'All the Irish have twenty cousins,' he began to do up his shoes, 'besides you told me,'

'And sleep a dozen to a room, and live off Potatoes and Hail Marys?' she sounded a little indignant and he remembered through a fug an argument about socialised medicine which he had probably lost.

'No doubt,' he said, and she opened her mouth to protest but he kissed her one last time and slipped out of her dream and into the morning mist.

June 1939, Yorkshire

**Molly**

Molly knew it was wimpy, but she was a little scared of the rocks on Rookdale. She was also a little exasperated at her best friend's latest scheme to escape his family.

'Come on!' Georgie shouted heartily, his blond hair catching the light as he pedalled furiously up the summit. Her own sturdy legs followed surely after him, her older bicycle jolting along the path. Finally, dizzy, she collapsed on the ground.

'Are we far away enough now then?' she asked, staring up at the perfect sky as she caught her breath on the rocky ledge. 'Satisfied your mother can't nag you about dress shirts up here on the Dales?'

He opened his bottle of lemonade and passed it to her as a peace-offering which she pretended to be grudging about. Really Molly couldn't think of a better place or better company in the world but she wasn't about to give Georgie the satisfaction of knowing that.

'You saved my life when I saw you in the village, I thought I would never escape from all the fuss with the party,' he said, panting. He smiled his good-natured grin, squinting in the sunlight through his blond hair and Molly thought 'handsome' in spite of herself and then felt horrified, she'd known Georgie all seventeen years of her life.

'And here's me thinking you really wanted to help me with my Latin verbs,'

'I will, I promise,' he said earnestly.

'Liar,' she said, 'and I even brought my exercise book, only for you to go dragging me around the countryside. George Crawley, you should be ashamed,'

'It's too hot for Latin anyway, too hot for a house-party,'

'Everyone says it's the last chance, before the war that is,'

'Last chance for what?' Georgie smiled, 'Mama wants me to meet some suitable types before I go up to Oxford, if I go that is,'

'You're not a soldier,' Molly said feeling a pang of something strange. She could not imagine Georgie killing anyone, he didn't even like hunting, the last time there'd been a meet he'd snuck off to read a book under a tree.

'I could be,' Georgie said, 'and what about you?'

'What about me?' Molly asked, watching a cloud drift across the sky.

'When you leave school what will you do? You're quite the smartest girl at Ripon Grammer,'

'Probably stay at home and help Mam run the pub,'

'You should have adventures,'

'And who says you can't have adventures in a pub in Yorkshire?'

Georgie laughed, he began to unpack the picnic and bit into a pork pie.

'Billie will be here soon, and she'll talk some sense into you,'

'When does Miss Sybil's train come in?'

'From Liverpool? This evening, and I don't know why you're calling her that, you don't call me Master Crawley,'

'I do in front of our mother's,' Mam had been friends with Georgie's mother for over 20 years and she still called her Lady Mary whilst Lady Mary called her Anna. Molly wondered if Georgie had even noticed this.

'And I haven't seen Miss- Billie properly for six years, not since they went to America,' Molly said with a frown,

Billie was a year older than her cousin, and Georgie was a year older than Molly. So when they had been children the three of them had been inseparable. Billie had been the one who always got them into trouble. Whilst Molly had been the voice of reason with Georgie an easy going centre, the golden boy. Then when he was eight Georgie had gone to prep-school and Billie's father had taken her to America to continue his journalism career. Molly had been left quite alone. The last time she had seen Billie was at her great-grandmother's funeral. Georgie had been stiff and strange in his new Eton tails and Molly, awkward in a dress she was growing out of (as she was all her clothes at eleven) had suddenly not known how to speak to him. Billie had come back from America seeming older then thirteen. She hadn't cried even though she had been the apple of old Lady Gratham's eye but she had seemed sharper and brittle and had smoked furtive cigarettes and talked about jazz.

'What's she like now?'

'You'll see,' Georgie said, 'she's pretty good fun,'

The sun was low in the sky, they were drowsy with food and their heads empty of Latin, when they finally, shrieking, made their way back to the village and the weather was settling in to the most perfect of English summer evenings. The air was still and smelling of wheat.

'You will protect me Molls, from all Mama's guests, I need someone I can make eyes at,'

'I doubt I'll meet any of them Georgie,' Molly said, 'I'll be polishing glassware all night,'

'I'll come and dance with you,' Georgie said, 'I'll waltz you around the kitchens,'

'I dance like a baby elephant,' Molly said truthfully and he laughed and tugged her plait but before she could hit him back he gave a gasp of delight.

Outside the station a figure in a wide brimmed straw hat and slacks was smoking furiously on a suitcase, suddenly she sprang into life.

'I don't believe it,' Georgie said, 'what luck!'

'Georgie!' the girl yelled, she stood up from the suitcase and beamed at him. Billie was still small but she had grown exceptionally pretty, with dark hair and pale skin. There was an explosion of fine freckles like poppy seeds starting on her perfect nose, stretching out across her face which made her beauty less intimidating.

'Billie, I thought you were on the evening train, Mama-'

'Nah, I came early- I was planning how to lug this to the house,' she hugged him, and put her hands on his shoulders, 'look at you, all grown up,'

'You saw me in New York last year! Was I not grown up then?'

'Well you're taller now for certain, must be leaving school, becoming a man of the world,' Billie balanced her trunk on the handle-bars of Georgie's bike and began to push it determinedly.

'I'll help,' Molly said, offering to take her handbag. Billie stared at her and then broke into a grin.

'Molly!' she cried and threw her, 'Molly Bates! You don't look any different, you still have plaits,'

'I do yes,'

'Do your parents still run the Grantham Arms?' Billie said, she almost dropped the trunk, said 'oh feck!' and laughed showing a set of small white teeth, 'I remember your Mam used to always give us a bottle of lemonade,'

'That's it Miss,' Molly said, pointing as the Gratham Arms came into view, 'they just lease it from his lordship though, it'll be Georgie's someday,'

'You shouldn't call me Miss,'

'Billie's a fearful revolutionary these days,' Georgie explained, 'it upsets Grandpapa,'

'I'm a socialist, not a revolutionary actually, it means I don't believe people should inherit pubs,' Billie said pointedly, 'but I'm not going to forcibly take young Master Crawley's inheritance and distribute it amongst the proletariat,'

'Is Molly the proletariat?' Georgie asked and she punched him lightly on the arm,

'Don't twist my words,'

'We can stop in at Granny Isabel's and ring for someone to come and get you and your trunk, then you'll be there in time to dress for dinner, everyone else is coming tomorrow,' Georgie said

'Oh joy, an English house-party,' Billie said and she and Georgie both giggled in a cousinly way.

Molly suddenly felt a little out of place 'I should be back to help Mam, she'll be expecting me,' she said

Georgie frowned, 'Don't let Billie scare you off, she's just warming up for Mama,'

'No, I should go,' Molly said, and before she could change her mind said, 'it was nice to meet you again,' and dashed off, her brown ponytail flapping in the wind.


	2. Chapter 2

**Billie**

'So whaddya think?' Billie gave a twirl, accentuated her American accent and plopped down on the bed with a giggle.

'It's a little daring,' Georgie said, 'just a little,'

The dress was red, long and silk. Bought of the peg at Bergadorfs and costing her whole part time wage answering the phone at an office downtown. It had no back and barely any neck. She had worn it too often and the hem was going but she loved it.

'It's my lucky dress,' she said, lighting a cigarette.

'Why?' Georgie asked.

She looked at him and sighed and thought of Zelda's jazz bar and cheap liquor in tea-cups and Chuck Jameson and his damn saxophone and the first time she had worn it. Chuck had been six foot three, the colour of black coffee with just a splash of milk and what Aunt Mary would call a total cad. He'd had her wound around his little finger for six months, charming her into his bed in Harlem, into turning a blind eye to his womanising and to even trying to persuade him to come to London with her. He had smiled at her and said, zipping her red dress back up 'there ain't nothing for me in London baby,'

In fact, she had gone to Dublin in May precisely to run away from him and another confused summer and right into the arms of- but she stopped herself. She couldn't tell Georgie all that. He was so earnest, so English and so young all of a sudden, he seemed much younger than her then by only a year. Still she suspected that was what an English education did to one.

'I'll tell you when you're older,' she ruffled his blond hair, 'has your mother started serving cocktails?'

Georgie cracked into a smile, 'You might get a sherry, if you're lucky,'

'Come and see me in London next year, when you're at Oxford,' she laughed as she applied her lipstick, 'I'll get you into trouble,'

'If I go, it might have started by September'

'You can't go to war Georgie,' she said, 'It would break your Mam's heart,'

'Do you think there will be a war?' Georgie said, avoiding the question.

'Yes,' she said, 'and they'll need doctors so I'll be useful, thank god,'

'Well I want to be useful too,' Georgie said, 'you are on my side Bills?'

'Of course I am,' Billie said, feeling an uncharacteristic pang, 'shall we go down?'

On the stairs they met her Uncle Charlie who was struggling with the lapels of his dinner jacket.

'Do us a favour old boy,' he said to his stepson, 'and go and see where your grandmother Isabel has got to? Your mother's becoming impatient,'

Georgie and he exchanged an amused look as he left and Charlie turned to Billie.

'Billie! I thought who was that beautiful woman and then it turned out to be you,' he said with a smile and she smiled back. Charlie was an easy-going man, still dashing in his fifties and not at all stuffy. Sometimes she feared she might like him rather more than her own blood relatives.

'Uncle Charlie! How are you?'

He took her arm, 'Not bad old girl, not bad, now do me a favour- don't mention the war in front of your Aunt Mary, she's frantic about George and it would quite spoil dinner,'

'I won't, but I do think he's quite determined,'

Charlie sighed, he laid a hand on her arm, 'I know-but it's a row that will have to be had another time, now will you escort me in? It's been a while since I've had such a pretty girl on my arm,'

'And how is your stepmother? Did she have a safe crossing back to New York?' asked Aunt Isabel after the preliminary kisses and exclamations about how much she'd grown. They were sat in the drawing room drinking not sherry but rather warm gin and tonics.

'Oh Becca's still in London, she says the situation in Europe is too good a journalistic opportunity to miss,' Billie said

'Goodness, doesn't she miss your brother's? They must only be five now,' her grandmother Cora said from across the fireplace.

'You haven't meet Daniel and David, I'm sure she's glad of a break,' Georgie said and Billie laughed. He'd had enough run in's with the twins when he'd visited New York with Aunt Edith the year before.

'But how is your father managing?'

'Oh- he's fine, their grandmother has practically adopted them anyway, besides Da brought me up on his own,' Billie said

'Well I think that is very sensible,' Aunt Mary, who was flipping through Vogue but still listening said, 'Americans can have some very funny ideas about child rearing,'

Her uncle winked at her, 'and you're to be living with Edith as you train to be a doctor, lucky girl, she always has the most splendid parties,'

'In her house of sin, yes,' Billie said, Georgie stifled a laugh causing Aunt Mary to put her drink down decidedly on the offered tray and the footman to raise an eyebrow.

'Really Sybil there is no need to be so dramatic, she married Michael years ago,' she said, 'sometimes I am glad your grandfather is too frail to come down for dinner, now shall we go in, they're about to ring the bell,'

Billie was about to say something unwise. Aunt Edith was very good friends with her stepmother, in fact she had been the one to introduce Becca to her father and Becca had very decided and readily expressed opinions on the shocking hypocrisy of society. As ever they were saved by Charlie.

'We're still waiting for one,' he said

'Oh yes Hal Kildare, really it is most inconvenient that people cannot arrive at the allocated time, or in fact the allocated day,' his wife said.

'The poor boy could only get his crossing from Liverpool this evening and it seems cruel to make him stay at the pub,' Charlie said evenly

'He's not a boy, he's the twenty three year old Earl of Wexford and extremely rich,' Aunt Mary said huffily, as though the fact he was an Earl meant he really should have had better manners.

'It's almost a shame we don't have a daughter my dear, we could keep him captive,' Charlie twinkled.

'There's Billie,' Georgie pointed out, 'you know he's Irish Bills,' his mouth was twitching.

'Ango-Irish, and I am not marrying anyone for a long time yet, especially not an Earl,' Billie said decidedly.

An excruciating hour later, and swearing under her breath Billie made her way down the maid's staircase. She was not at all lost downstairs even though she noticed they'd finally gotten around to putting in electric lighting: From the moment she could walk until 1930 she had lived a split life. She had scampered back from Gratham Village school every day and left the cottagers children at the end of the lane. Then she ran to Downton and had sat in the kitchen's and helped Mrs Mason make lardy cakes and gingerbread and got teased by the footmen and her fortune read by the scullery maid. When Georgie arrived back from his posh day school in Ripon she straightened her hair ribbon and had tea with him and his Aunt and it had not mattered at all that she'd spent the day with the servants. Still that had been a long time ago, and suddenly everything seemed a lot less straightforward.

'Oh Miss, you didn't half scare me,' a voice said from the half darkness

'Sorry, I'm Sybil Branson,' she said to the maid

'I know Miss,' the housemaid looked about twelve and very puzzled and slightly overawed.

Billie sighed, she could never get used to this amount of deference, 'Yes- I'm sure you do, who are you?'

'Jenny Miss,'

'Jenny do you think you can do me a favour? I need to make a phone call to London and it's not very private in the hallway. Can I use the one in Mr Barrow's room?'

'I don't think he'd like-'

'Look Jenny it's an emergency, I'll take the blame I promise,'

'A-alright Miss-'

In the Butler's study she took a moment to collect herself, helping herself to some whisky. She knew she shouldn't bother Becca, in fact she had promised herself when she had said goodbye to her stepmother in Liverpool the day before that she would prove her independence by not immediately making any contact.

But that was before HE had tuned up, looking devastatingly handsome in a dinner suit and obviously astonished to find her here. Really it was too much.

Remembering her father's warning that 'there's always someone listening in that house,' she checked the coast was clear and rang the number of her stepmother's temporary London workplace.

'London Evening Standard,' the voice on the other line said

'Hello I need to speak to Rebecca Branson- Cohen- I'm not sure which name she's using over here, she's on the foreign desk,'

'Mrs Cohen- she might have left, it's late,'

'She won't have,' Billie said, with all that was going on in Europe Becca would still be at work. She could picture her now, small, dark and erratically dressed, peering over her spectacles with irritation at the work of a hapless journalist and complaining over the state of English coffee in a cloud of smoke.

'Whose speaking?'

'Her stepdaughter Miss Branson, don't worry, you can bother her with me,'

'I suppose so, hold the line please,' the voice sounded reluctant which suggested the speaker had had dealings with Becca before.

She waited and the familiar New York drawl of her stepmother said

'Billie? What is it?'

'Hello Becca are you busy?'

'Yeah- what is it? No look-' her voice became further away 'the facts on this aren't at all clear- well ring him again, well tell Carlisle he'll have to wait for his damn story- look it's my stepdaughter she's ringing from the sticks and I need to take it- alright, fine tell the bastard what you want but get it done,' she came back on the phone

'Honestly this place is staffed by utter schmucks, what is it? English nobs getting to you already?'

'No, they're fine- I've done something a bit foolish though,'

'Jeez you're starting to sound like them already you know. So what's his name honey?'

'Hal Kildare, he's an Irish Earl, I didn't know that before I went to bed with him, it was in Dublin a few months ago and now he's gone and turned up to the house party,'

Becca did not sound at all shocked, she did sound a little amused, 'Oh honey! Don't tell your father,'

'I wasn't intending to and don't tell Aunt Edith,'

'She wouldn't be that shocked, I hope you used your diaphragm,'

'Becca! Really I'm not a complete idiot!'

'Billie honey I am not judging you but you know they won't let you become a doctor with a kid,'

'Yeah I know. Will you be in London when I come down or are you going back to the states?'

'I want to get back to Brooklyn where they know how to put ice in drinks but Herr Hitler seems to have other ideas, besides your Aunt Edith and I are still working on finance for the next Kindertransport, you should come down and help us,'

'I will, after the house party, I promised Georgie I'd stay,'

'Alright but keep your legs together and when you come to London I'll find you a nice Jewish boy,'

'I miss Da, I even miss the twins,' Billie said plaintively

'I know honey, but it will do you good to strike out on your own, now I really must get back to these proofs, you have fun now and give my love to your Uncle Charlie, not the rest of them,'

'I will,'

Out on the terrace she fumbled in her dress pocket for a box of matches and said 'Feckin England,' very loudly to the moon, which shone back nonchalantly.

'Light?' a familiar voice said. She gave a little start,

'Are you following me?' she demanded

'No,' Hal Kildare, Earl of Wexford was tall and blond with a freckled face, it was now frowning at her, he lit his own cigarette, 'I came out for the same reason you did but I can leave you in peace if you want,'

'Aunt Mary doesn't approve,' she said.

'Of what?' he asked

'Smoking, she thinks it's unladylike, not that I'm a lady,' she waved smoke at him impatiently and there was an awkward silence,

'Look I don't usually do that sort of thing,' she said finally, 'I mean jump into bed with strangers at parties, I usually at least know their surnames, and I always always usually check they haven't got a title,'

'Indeed?' he smiled, she remembered he had a very nice smile 'and I don't tend to sleep with the nieces of my parents friends,' he added, 'goodness what a mess,'

'Oh so you thought I was safe?' Billie felt cross in spite of herself, 'well no fear, I'm not a debutante,'

'Yes you told me, you're about to start training to be a doctor, which is precisely why I liked you,' Hal said, 'of course I'll make an excuse in the morning and leave,'

'Don't be an eejit,' she said and flicked the cigarette over the terrace, 'I'm not about to make a fuss, and if Aunt Mary suspects a thing she'll send a cable to Da and then I really will be in for it, he would not approve of you,'

'Oh,' Hal said in that irritatingly English way which meant nothing and a lot all at once, 'was that who were you on the phone to? Your father?'

'My stepmother, she's a journalist like he is,'

'Would she not approve of me either?'

'Becca is somewhere left of Lenin,' Billie said, 'and Da was practically in the IRA I think, although he won't talk about it oh and he was a chauffeur, he eloped with my mother which is how I ended up related to this lot, so I'm like the cuckoo in the nest here, not a good prospect,'

'Well that's a shame,' he still looked amused

'I suppose your family a very conservative and proper,' she snapped

'Indeed they are,' Hal said gravely, 'and none too fond of the IRA, or left wing journalists for that matter, they don't have any problem with chauffeurs,'

'It's a shame really because you were the only man I knew in England that I'm not related to,' Billie said

'A great shame,' he said, but he still looked a little amused.


	3. Chapter 3

**April 1939, Dublin **

'It's alright, I was escaping too,'

The speaker was dark haired freckled girl wearing a red dress which was far too low cut to be entirely respectable and smoking furiously. She was sitting on the roof of the mansion, her hands around her knees.

'It's a shitty party isn't it?' she said conversationally.

He laughed with surprise, her voice was a American-Irish with just a note of an English aceent as well and slightly husky. She was very pretty and there was something else about her which made him want to linger.

'Indeed, can I trouble you for one of those?' he asked sitting down. She took the cigarette, popped it in her mouth and lit it.

'Sure,' she smiled, they smoked in silence for a while.

'So how do you know- oh what's her name again? With the teeth. Fiona?' she said

'She went to school with my sister,' he grimaced, 'which should have told me all I needed to know, how about you?'

'I don't, thank god- my aunt got me an invite,'

'She must have it in for you,'

The girl laughed 'I think she meant it to be kind, I've been in America since I was a kid and I don't know anyone in Dublin apart from about a thousand cousins, I wish I had gone to the pub with them now,'

'You can get a cocktail at the Sherborne hotel,' he said 'and they have a jazz band,'

'You had me at cocktails, I'll get my coat,' she grinned and extended a hand 'I'm Billie by the way, Billie Branson,'

'Oh- there are some Branson's near Cork are you one of those I don't think I've met you before,'

'Nah, I'm just me, and you are?'

'Hal,' he said, and taking her arm led her through the window.


End file.
